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winter starts: walking and thinking

June 1 dawned with cold, blustery south westerly winds, dark clouds, driving rain and big seas. Winter had arrived on cue.

This cloud formation is what greeted Kayla and myself on the early morning poodlewalk on June 1. We hugged the northern edge of Rosetta Head to escape the 50 km south-westerly wind. I was looking across Encounter Bay to Goolwa and to the Coorong.

winter

The weather was too wild to continue to the top of Rosetta Head and down the southern side, so we turned away from the coast, which is where we normally walk and photograph, jumped in the car and drove inland to seek some protection from the gusty, driving wind. We walked up and down Depledge Rd for about 30-40 minutes before I decided to return to exploring the bush “reserve” that ran adjacent to the western side of Depledge Rd in Waitpinga. We had had walked within this “reserve” a few days before.

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returning to the Heysen Trail

In the last week or so I have returned to walking along the Waitpinga section of the Heysen Trail in the morning with Kayla and in the afternoon with Maleko. This section of the Heysen Trail is a narrow strip of scrub or bush that runs between two roads, and it is bounded by two grazing paddocks (cattle and sheep). The narrow strip is a corridor that is quite dense in parts.

The mornings and afternoons have been overcast with minimal wind, and this has allowed me to do some black and white film photography of tree subjects that I had photographed in colour a couple of years ago. I started the scoping here.

Whilst walking to and from the photo sites on both the morning and the afternoon poodlewalks I made some exploratory/scoping studies of different subject matter in the scrub/bush for some future film photography. This is an example:

branch, Heysen Trail

I would have walked past this branch on the edge of the path of the Heysen Trail many times without ever having seen it. I only saw it this time because Kayla went exploring in the undergrowth behind the branch. I quickly made a snap and moved on.

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summer-time + impermanence

The Xmas break  is over for this summer-time.  The holiday crowds have left vacationing  along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula  during the extended school holidays,  and  returned to work in Adelaide.  The schools are back and  the photographers have gone.

The hot days came and went  during January,   with  the minimium/maximium  temperatures rising.  The warming trend   means that Australian summers are becoming hotter and the heatwaves more intense.  Sadly, the sand has been disappearing  from  Dep’s Beach and Petrel Cove ever since the big storm in December,    and these  two beaches are now looking  desolate.

Over the Xmas break I  continued to  photograph in the early morning  whilst walking with Kayla.  I focused on  low key macro photography before the light became too bright and contrasty. The photography  is hand held and quick. The conditions are not suitable for slow  large format photography.

quartz + salt, Petrel Cove

Currently, the mornings start cool,   the days heat up and reach their zenith around 5 pm but, unlike drought damaged inland regions,  the temperature usually  drops at night. With the crowds gone,  the beaches along the coast are  quiet during the week,  and we often have them to ourselves in the early morning around dawn and sunrise. We now have the space to be in the moment and see the  transient and ephemeral nature of life on the coast.   Continue reading “summer-time + impermanence”

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the Xmas break 2018

The weather along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula over the Xmas break was surprisingly cool; surprisingly so,  given the record breaking heatwave across central and south-eastern  Australia.

Despite having several  friends  stay with us in and around the  Xmas break, it was  a quiet holiday  for me.  I’d  sprained my right shoulder one morning just before  Xmas day  whilst helping Suzanne  to make the bed.

bark abstract, Encounter Bay

The shoulder  became  inflamed and,  as it involved shoulder bursitis pain,    I was obliged to rest the right arm in a sling  for a couple of days over Xmas  before  seeing a physiotherapist late in the Xmas/New Year Day week.  I was given a set of exercises to do  for a week to strengthen the strained shoulder muscle.

Then the injury  would be reassessed. The prognosis was that it could take 2-8 weeks to heal, depending on  how I responded to the various exercises. I’ve  had good days and bad days so far.   Continue reading “the Xmas break 2018”

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recovered archives

I have been going through my old archives from a PC that died many years ago.  The images had  been backed up on Lacie hard disc which also  crashed,  and they were eventually recovered by a  tech specialist.   The 13,000 images are all jumbled up, there are many repetitions, others are jpegs,  whilst large numbers  are corrupted and so useless.

This is one rescued image from along the coast west of Petrel Cove, and it was made around 2008 when Suzanne and I were coming down to Encounter Bay for the weekends. We  were living in Adelaide’s CBD then, and  we were both working full time.

lichen + granite

My reason for returning to these archives is to see the  images that I have made around the River Murray since 2008.  I wanted to see the relevance  of these archival images for the proposed Our Waters  project with Lars Heldmann.   Continue reading “recovered archives”

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back home

I am  now back home after a hectic period of travelling  during March.  There were  a couple of trips to Wellington to photograph around Wellington quickly followed by one  to attend Photobook/NZ.  After that   I made   a couple of trips  to Swan Hill in Victoria for the  Mallee Routes 2018 exhibition. 

We are  now easing  back  into  our daily routines and poodlewalks at Encounter Bay.  The Easter holidays  are a few days away. That means huge crowds in  the coastal towns and along the coastal walks.

seaweed strand, Petrel Cove

It is autumn in South Australia.   The light has softened,  there is  now  more in the way of morning cloud cover,  the winds have eased,  and the temperatures are  mild  (in the mid 20’s C) . It is still very dry, as there has been no rain.  Continue reading “back home”

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afternoon walks

We–Suzanne, Maleko, Kayla and I — did some walks together  between,  and just after,   the Xmas-New Year period. We wanted   to avoid the Xmas crowds gathering around the coastal beaches,  and I had used google maps to  look for possible ways  for us to walk along Hindmarsh River.  Most of them  turned out to be duds. There were just no walking trails. It was mostly all private property.

One of the afternoon walks that we  did early in the new year (2018) was  one  along the  trail of  the Hindmarsh River,  which  ran adjacent to the old McCracken residential development.

Hindmarsh River trail

It had been years since we walked along the upper  section of the Hindmarsh River Walk . On the day we walked the river was  low,  with  little in the way of a flow, and we noticed that  there had been some planting on the old flood plain,  which was now a park with a playground.     Continue reading “afternoon walks”

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memories

One of my memories of the  early morning walks that I used to do  in the last months of  Ari’s life in 2017 was one where I ‘d walk with him along Jetty Rd. On these occasions Suzanne  would  take   Kayla and Maleko up and over Rosetta Head,  and I would walk with Ari down to the beach, then along Jetty Rd, which runs around the foot of Rosetta Head.

Jetty Rd  runs from Whalers Convention Centre to the little jetty at the northern side of Rosetta Head,  and as it is easy walking, it was suitable for Ari.    The jetty is a favourite of the recreational fishermen and we’d alway meet someone fishing from the jetty early in the morning.

cactus leaves, Jetty Rd,

It was a slow walk to and from the jetty, and Ari and I  would often hang around an  old palm tree and cactus on our  way back. I would take a few photos with the little Olympus XZ-1 that  we had purchased for Suzanne to use on her various  walks.  Continue reading “memories”

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upgrading poodlewalks

I have decided to upgrade the poodlewalks blog from the free WordPress blog platform that I have been using for so long to more of a website platform with its own blog and galleries. The galleries will bring the offshoots or spinoffs from poodlewalks that are currently on various standalone Posthaven blogs–abstractions, the trees series, and the Littoral Zone. The blog will continue the traditional poodlewalks format with the website titled known as poodlewalks.

flowers, memorial

My reason is that a lot of my daily photography —outside specific projects like Mallee Routes—centres around poodlewalks. I am walking twice a day –in the morning and afternoon–with each of the walks around an hour’s duration. If the light is right, then the walks are 1.5-2 hours in duration. Often I go back and reshoot for the Fleurieuscape book and portfolio. The new format will bring all the work around poodlewalks together.

Continue reading “upgrading poodlewalks”

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on a poodlewalk with Heather Petty

Heather Petty stayed a couple of days with us at Solway Crescent in Encounter Bay–arriving around 4pm on Friday afternoon. The weather was overcast with a cold sou’westerly wind blowing. Light showers from the south west drifted across the land early on Sunday morning, frustrating my photo session at Petrel Cove.

On Friday afternoon we went on a poodlewalk amongst the coastal rocks near Dep’s beach, and then on Saturday afternoon a poodlewalk around the Hindmarsh River estuary in Victor Harbor to photograph the melaleucas. Kayla stayed very close to Heather whilst we were on these walks.

This is one image that I had scoped on previous walks.The medium format Rolleiflex was used on this occasion as I currently have no large format colour film, and I wanted to finish off the roll of 120 film sitting in the Rollei SL66’s film back.

lagoon, Hindmarsh River estuary

Whilst I was working on this photo Heather was photographing what caught her eye on the sea side of the lagoon with her classically styled Nikon DSLR (Df) with its big zoom lens. The poodles, preferring Heather’s company to mine, went off with her and stayed with Heather.

Continue reading “on a poodlewalk with Heather Petty”